Hey guys this is Reuben with Competition Accessories today I'm talking about the Shoei X-twelve this is new for 2010 top of the line flag ship helmet. Shoei said its born from racing bred on the race track this obviously replaces the X11, i have an X11 in anthracite and i have the new X12 just to give you a quick comparison between the two. If i turn them side by side here ,head to head if you will,you will see the shape the over all aggressiveness again built for the race track built for that real aggressive tucked position. The X11 was a fantastic helmet very very popular a lot of the top racers wore it for a long time, now they've moved on to the X12. What they've done with the exterior of the helmet is basically two things they have streamed lined it significantly if you look at the way the spoiler integrates into the back of the X12 verses the X11 you can see its just a cleaner shell shape and what that's going to give you is even better manors at high speeds its going to have less buffeting be smooth and stable . Its also probably going to be quieter as far as there's a little bit less exterior going on the X12 your going to have just cleaner flow of air over the top another thing that they have significantly upgraded from the X11 to X12 is the venting and if you look at the X 12 here there are actually five intake vents and ten exhaust vents a few are hidden behind the arrowhead spoiler and in the base of the neck roll even on the exterior you can see there's a large vent on the rear where the X11 does not have exhaust vents on the sides they've enlarged the other vents that are there so your just going to have a lot more air flow in the X12 vs the X12 which is already really an aggressively vented helmet they've just taken it one step further with the X12. Another thing you'll see when you take a look at these head on is the shield the eye port, has been changed so now you are on the CW1 shield its going to be taller and wider so you have a lot better view of the track ahead , more peripheral vision better top to bottom vision .That really helps when your on a really tight tuck you can still get your eyes up and see above the brow here. Other helmets come down too low for that not built for that aggressive riding position . The X 12 again built for the race track. I'm going to go ahead and move the X11 out of the way here and well get into the features of the X12. First thing i wanna talk about is the shell, this is Shoeis AIM plus shell its called the Advanced Integrated Matrix Plus Multi fiber Shell. Basically its a mix between carbon fiber , Kevlar and fiber glass . They use elastic fibers in there to basically spread and absorb impact as much as possible. So if you have a sharp impact point its going to spread it over the largest area possible. On the interior of the helmet we have the EPS liner and it does its job absorbing all of that energy and preventing it from transferring into your head. The venting on this helmet is extremely aggressive as i said you have a chin bar vent here, open and close that going to direct air up onto the face shield help reduce fogging . You have a brow vent its going to bring air into your forehead and bring it around the sides . You have a top scoop you'll notice a lot of these vents are forward on the helmet that's because when your riding in this thing your going to be in this position and that air is going to be ramming straight on to that vent and giving you plenty of air flow. You have some exhaust vents here and the way these work is as air flows over the top shell its going to create a vacuum behind this little lip here and that's going to draw warm air out of the helmet. Same thing on the back you have a closeable rear vent airs going to be drawn out the back , underneath the spoiler here you'll see the gap , that gap is going to have some holes threw the shell that are going to draw warm air out your going to have some on the sides here mini vents and then again at the base of the neck roll there are some small vents that come out from the inside as well which is going to give you even more ventilation. The arrowed spoiler on this is basically this rear portion and its built into the helmet and what that does like i said earlier reduces buffeting keeps your head very stable . This helmet is very well mannered if you need to do head checks it doesn't do anything weird doesn't pull doesn't shake shimmy i mean this thing again is built for the race track they know what they are talking about when they do high speed runs. When you get into the face shield here its again the CW1 shield its available in a multitude of tints colors being a race helmet its going to be available with tear off posts , it also come pin lock ready if you want to instal a pin-lock system you could purchase a pin lock ready shield which is a separate shield you'd have to purchase and that's going to have some pins inside that you can insert the pin lock system . Basically what that does it gives you a duel layered shield which is going to reduce fogging and it instead of the warm air from your breath hitting the shield directly its that pin lock that is insulated because its two layers , it works really really well Ive ridden with them quite a bit actually . As far as the shield mechanism goes this is what Shoei calls their quick release self adjusting base plate and if you get it nice and tight on this when i open it you can actually see these little springs inside compress and when it closes it pulls the shield back and in and what that does is it gives it a really good and tight seal around the entire gasket all the way around the face shield and that give you just a really nice tight fit. It prevents any outside air or water from getting in the helmet it also give you a little bit quieter of a ride. There is another feature here its the helmet and shield lock so if you tilt this back its actually going to lock the shield down you physically can not open , a lot of guys will run that at the track in the locked position so when your doing 150 plus and your doing a head check your shield doesn't come open on you. You can also push this forward and that's going to very slightly separate that gasket and shield to get a tiny bit more air into the shield which is again going to help with any fogging issues if your running into that or if its just a hot out and you just want a little bit extra air flow you can just crack that forward . Of coarse there's also a detente if you want to open it a little bit further you can open it to the first detente and there's also a ratcheting mechanism all the way up and down. To take this shield off is very simple just basically two triggers on both sides push forward on that and it pops right out very easy to do , it just comes right off. Another thing i want you to see right on the shield is it actually has a built in lip in the top edge, you don't see this very often at all and what that does when you close the shield it is going to create a seal right along the top of that gasket so if you are riding in the rain your not going to have water or other air or anything coming in from the top of the shield so that's a really great feature as well. To reinstall the shield just line up the pins give it a press its going to click right into place so these things are really easy to swap in and out . Next were going into the interior of this helmet which are where the guts are where it does a lot of the protecting. The interior of the X12 is again built for the racer who's on the track pushing it hard and sweating a lot , they use a max dry system which is a moisture locking liner its going to pull sweat away from your face its going to allow a lot of that ventilation that i showed you on the outside of the helmet actually reach your skin and reach your head they call it their 3D liner Ill tell you why when i pull it out here before i do you'll probably notice there are two bright red tabs on either side of the cheek pads . What those are Shoeis emergency quick release system and again this is for the race track it also would really benefit you on the street too if you have an accident basically its for emergency personnel to quickly and easily pull your cheek pads out which is going to allow them to lift your helmet off with minimal impact to your head and neck , so they would be able to slide your helmet off a lot easier with the cheek pads out. Basically what you do is just grab the tab and they would just pull it out and you see it has a little loop hole for your finger and you can just rip the cheek pad right out , do the other side here and you can just see how much bigger that opening is now and you could imagine how much easier they would have they would have a much easier time getting your helmet off of your head with that much extra room . You can remove the rest of the liner its just two snaps at the back and then plastic in the front and this is the 3D max liner , what i want you to see on this liner is all these holes and openings here are going to provide you with a lot of ventilation all that ventilation is coming from the inside of the helmet from the outside in, that cool air is going to come in reach your skin and the warm air is just going to be drawn out the back and its designed to work perfectly in conjunction with all the venting that's on the outside of the helmet .If you look down on the inside of this helmet you can see some of the channeling in the actual EPS liner. What they use is actually a duel layer EPS liner and i actually have one to show you right over here this is actually whats on the inside the guts of whats actually X12 here . Its a duel layer EPS liner there's a lot of research going into one of these basically its designed to absorb as much impact as possible it crushes on impact so that your brain doesn't slam up inside of your skull its going to absorb as much impact as possible. They use different density's of foam throughout the liner to progressively absorb the impact, do if you have a minor hit its going to still have that give that you need , If you have a major hit its going to have that slight give and then you resist more and more as the impact happens. There's also separate pieces Ive kind of taped it together here so you can see what it looks like put together on the inside of the helmet. Before i pull it apart i want you to notice how many holes there are on the outside vents that are reaching threw this liner. Here , at the top , at the top here and the rear , at the back of the sides i mean this thing is built again for very very good ventilation. If i kind of pull it apart here you'll see they have separate pieces for the sides of the helmet this is actually what goes on behind the base plate so where the shield mechanism is . You'll need more protection in that area you'll notice it actually doesn't compromise the thickness of the liner even with this piece in place its plenty thick in that area . The chin guard is actually 2 pieces so you can see the entire chin bar is lined with this EPS foam but a lot of the other helmet manufactures cant say that. Their chin bar has a but of rubberized material but a little bit of foam in the front but this is the full EPS liner that goes all the way across the chin bar you have complete coverage on this helmet , and then on the bottom of the helmet or on the inside rather you can see these channels that run threw the middle I'm going to see if i can get my tape off of here and ill pull out this inside piece and this is what i was telling you about earlier this is the duel layer feature of the liner and basically this is going to you can see there's air channels that run on the inside of the shell and again this is just to allow cool air to come in and all the hot air to escape the very bottom of the interior there's more air holes for the air to come out. The X 12 has Shoeis performance fit and basically its an intermediate oval and it is a little bit tighter if your coming from an RF1100 or a Qwest you'll notice that the helmet is just a little bit more snug not enough to go up a size or anything like that because you actually want the helmet to be snug. Again this helmet is bread from the race track born from racing so the guys you see out there Moto GP and they want their helmets tight as possible because when your pushing those upper triple digit speeds you don't want that helmet moving around at all , and in a crashing scenario you need that foam to be as close to your head as possible so your head doesn't travel to hit the foam the foams already there to absorb the impact in that kind of situation. So that was our in depth look at the X12 from Shoei .

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